Messages that increase women’s intentions to abstain from alcohol during pregnancy: results from quantitative testing of advertising concepts

Background: Public awareness-raising campaigns targeting alcohol use during pregnancy are an important part of preventing prenatal alcohol exposure and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Despite this, there is little evidence on what specific elements contribute to campaign message effectiveness. This research evaluated three different advertising concepts addressing alcohol and pregnancy: a threat appeal, a positive appeal promoting a self-efficacy message, and a concept that combined the two appeals. The primary aim was to determine the effectiveness of these concepts in increasing women’s intentions to abstain from alcohol during pregnancy.Methods: Women of childbearing age and pregnant women residing in Perth, Western Australia participated in a computer-based questionnaire where they viewed either a control or one of the three experimental concepts. Following exposure, participants’ intentions to abstain from and reduce alcohol intake during pregnancy were measured. Other measures assessed included perceived main message, message diagnostics, and potential to promote defensive responses or unintended consequences.Results: The concepts containing a threat appeal were significantly more effective at increasing women’s intentions to abstain from alcohol during pregnancy than the self-efficacy message and the control. The concept that combined threat and self-efficacy is recommended for development as part of a mass-media campaign as it has good persuasive potential, provides a balance of positive and negative emotional responses, and is unlikely to result in defensive or unintended consequences.Conclusions: This study provides important insights into the components that enhance the persuasiveness and effectiveness of messages aimed at preventing prenatal alcohol exposure. The recommended concept has good potential for use in a future campaign aimed at promoting women’s intentions to abstain from alcohol during pregnanc

Supporting adolescent emotional health in schools: a mixed methods study of student and staff views in England

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Schools have been identified as an important place in which to support adolescent emotional health, although evidence as to which interventions are effective remains limited. Relatively little is known about student and staff views regarding current school-based emotional health provision and what they would like to see in the future, and this is what this study explored.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A random sample of 296 English secondary schools were surveyed to quantify current level of emotional health provision. Qualitative student focus groups (27 groups, 154 students aged 12-14) and staff interviews (12 interviews, 15 individuals) were conducted in eight schools, purposively sampled from the survey respondents to ensure a range of emotional health activity, free school meal eligibility and location. Data were analysed thematically, following a constant comparison approach.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Emergent themes were grouped into three areas in which participants felt schools did or could intervene: emotional health in the curriculum, support for those in distress, and the physical and psychosocial environment. Little time was spent teaching about emotional health in the curriculum, and most staff and students wanted more. Opportunities to explore emotions in other curriculum subjects were valued. All schools provided some support for students experiencing emotional distress, but the type and quality varied a great deal. Students wanted an increase in school-based help sources that were confidential, available to all and sympathetic, and were concerned that accessing support should not lead to stigma. Finally, staff and students emphasised the need to consider the whole school environment in order to address sources of distress such as bullying and teacher-student relationships, but also to increase activities that enhanced emotional health.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Staff and students identified several ways in which schools can improve their support of adolescent emotional health, both within and outside the curriculum. However, such changes should be introduced as part of a wider consideration of how the whole school environment can be more supportive of students' emotional health. Clearer guidance at policy level, more rigorous evaluation of current interventions, and greater dissemination of good practice is necessary to ensure adolescents' emotional health needs are addressed effectively within schools.</p

Conceptualizing pathways linking women's empowerment and prematurity in developing countries.

BackgroundGlobally, prematurity is the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5. Many efforts have focused on clinical approaches to improve the survival of premature babies. There is a need, however, to explore psychosocial, sociocultural, economic, and other factors as potential mechanisms to reduce the burden of prematurity. Women's empowerment may be a catalyst for moving the needle in this direction. The goal of this paper is to examine links between women's empowerment and prematurity in developing settings. We propose a conceptual model that shows pathways by which women's empowerment can affect prematurity and review and summarize the literature supporting the relationships we posit. We also suggest future directions for research on women's empowerment and prematurity.MethodsThe key words we used for empowerment in the search were "empowerment," "women's status," "autonomy," and "decision-making," and for prematurity we used "preterm," "premature," and "prematurity." We did not use date, language, and regional restrictions. The search was done in PubMed, Population Information Online (POPLINE), and Web of Science. We selected intervening factors-factors that could potentially mediate the relationship between empowerment and prematurity-based on reviews of the risk factors and interventions to address prematurity and the determinants of those factors.ResultsThere is limited evidence supporting a direct link between women's empowerment and prematurity. However, there is evidence linking several dimensions of empowerment to factors known to be associated with prematurity and outcomes for premature babies. Our review of the literature shows that women's empowerment may reduce prematurity by (1) preventing early marriage and promoting family planning, which will delay age at first pregnancy and increase interpregnancy intervals; (2) improving women's nutritional status; (3) reducing domestic violence and other stressors to improve psychological health; and (4) improving access to and receipt of recommended health services during pregnancy and delivery to help prevent prematurity and improve survival of premature babies.ConclusionsWomen's empowerment is an important distal factor that affects prematurity through several intervening factors. Improving women's empowerment will help prevent prematurity and improve survival of preterm babies. Research to empirically show the links between women's empowerment and prematurity is however needed

Stacked Search for Gravitational Waves from the 2006 SGR 1900+14 Storm

We present the results of a LIGO search for short-duration gravitational waves (GWs) associated with the 2006 March 29 SGR 1900+14 storm. A new search method is used, "stacking'' the GW data around the times of individual soft-gamma bursts in the storm to enhance sensitivity for models in which multiple bursts are accompanied by GW emission. We assume that variation in the time difference between burst electromagnetic emission and potential burst GW emission is small relative to the GW signal duration, and we time-align GW excess power time-frequency tilings containing individual burst triggers to their corresponding electromagnetic emissions. We use two GW emission models in our search: a fluence-weighted model and a flat (unweighted) model for the most electromagnetically energetic bursts. We find no evidence of GWs associated with either model. Model-dependent GW strain, isotropic GW emission energy E_GW, and \gamma = E_GW / E_EM upper limits are estimated using a variety of assumed waveforms. The stacking method allows us to set the most stringent model-dependent limits on transient GW strain published to date. We find E_GW upper limit estimates (at a nominal distance of 10 kpc) of between 2x10^45 erg and 6x10^50 erg depending on waveform type. These limits are an order of magnitude lower than upper limits published previously for this storm and overlap with the range of electromagnetic energies emitted in SGR giant flares.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Directional Limits on Persistent Gravitational Waves from Advanced LIGO’s First Observing Run

We employ gravitational-wave radiometry to map the stochastic gravitational wave background expected from a variety of contributing mechanisms and test the assumption of isotropy using data from the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory’s (aLIGO) first observing run. We also search for persistent gravitational waves from point sources with only minimal assumptions over the 20–1726 Hz frequency band. Finding no evidence of gravitational waves from either point sources or a stochastic background, we set limits at 90% confidence. For broadband point sources, we report upper limits on the gravitational wave energy flux per unit frequency in the range Fα;ΘðfÞ < ð0.1–56Þ × 10−8 erg cm−2 s−1 Hz−1ðf=25 HzÞα−1 depending on the sky location Θ and the spectral power index α. For extended sources, we report upper limits on the fractional gravitational wave energy density required to close the Universe of Ωðf; ΘÞ < ð0.39–7.6Þ × 10−8 sr−1ðf=25 HzÞα depending on Θ and α. Directed searches for narrowband gravitational waves from astrophysically interesting objects (Scorpius X-1, Supernova 1987 A, and the Galactic Center) yield median frequency-dependent limits on strain amplitude of h0 < ð6.7; 5.5; and 7.0Þ × 10−25, respectively, at the most sensitive detector frequencies between 130–175 Hz. This represents a mean improvement of a factor of 2 across the band compared to previous searches of this kind for these sky locations, considering the different quantities of strain constrained in each case

Constraints on cosmic strings using data from the first Advanced LIGO observing run

Cosmic strings are topological defects which can be formed in grand unified theory scale phase transitions in the early universe. They are also predicted to form in the context of string theory. The main mechanism for a network of Nambu-Goto cosmic strings to lose energy is through the production of loops and the subsequent emission of gravitational waves, thus offering an experimental signature for the existence of cosmic strings. Here we report on the analysis conducted to specifically search for gravitational-wave bursts from cosmic string loops in the data of Advanced LIGO 2015-2016 observing run (O1). No evidence of such signals was found in the data, and as a result we set upper limits on the cosmic string parameters for three recent loop distribution models. In this paper, we initially derive constraints on the string tension Gμ and the intercommutation probability, using not only the burst analysis performed on the O1 data set but also results from the previously published LIGO stochastic O1 analysis, pulsar timing arrays, cosmic microwave background and big-bang nucleosynthesis experiments. We show that these data sets are complementary in that they probe gravitational waves produced by cosmic string loops during very different epochs. Finally, we show that the data sets exclude large parts of the parameter space of the three loop distribution models we consider

Prospects for observing and localizing gravitational-wave transients with Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA

We present possible observing scenarios for the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA gravitational-wave detectors over the next decade, with the intention of providing information to the astronomy community to facilitate planning for multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves. We estimate the sensitivity of the network to transient gravitational-wave signals, and study the capability of the network to determine the sky location of the source. We report our findings for gravitational-wave transients, with particular focus on gravitational-wave signals from the inspiral of binary neutron star systems, which are the most promising targets for multi-messenger astronomy. The ability to localize the sources of the detected signals depends on the geographical distribution of the detectors and their relative sensitivity, and 90% credible regions can be as large as thousands of square degrees when only two sensitive detectors are operational. Determining the sky position of a significant fraction of detected signals to areas of 5– 20 deg2 requires at least three detectors of sensitivity within a factor of ∼2 of each other and with a broad frequency bandwidth. When all detectors, including KAGRA and the third LIGO detector in India, reach design sensitivity, a significant fraction of gravitational-wave signals will be localized to a few square degrees by gravitational-wave observations alone

Full band all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in the O1 LIGO data

We report on a new all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in the frequency band 475–2000 Hz and with a frequency time derivative in the range of ½−1.0; þ0.1 × 10−8 Hz=s. Potential signals could be produced by a nearby spinning and slightly nonaxisymmetric isolated neutron star in our Galaxy. This search uses the data from Advanced LIGO’s first observational run O1. No gravitational-wave signals were observed, and upper limits were placed on their strengths. For completeness, results from the separately published low-frequency search 20–475 Hz are included as well. Our lowest upper limit on worst-case (linearly polarized) strain amplitude h0 is ∼4 × 10−25 near 170 Hz, while at the high end of our frequency range, we achieve a worst-case upper limit of 1.3 × 10−24. For a circularly polarized source (most favorable orientation), the smallest upper limit obtained is ∼1.5 × 10−25

Chemotherapy effectiveness in trial-underrepresented groups with early breast cancer:A retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Adjuvant chemotherapy in early stage breast cancer has been shown to reduce mortality in a large meta-analysis of over 100 randomised trials. However, these trials largely excluded patients aged 70 years and over or with higher levels of comorbidity. There is therefore uncertainty about whether the effectiveness of adjuvant chemotherapy generalises to these groups, hindering patient and clinician decision-making. This study utilises administrative healthcare data-real world data (RWD)-and econometric methods for causal analysis to estimate treatment effectiveness in these trial-underrepresented groups. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Women with early breast cancer aged 70 years and over and those under 70 years with a high level of comorbidity were identified and their records extracted from Scottish Cancer Registry (2001-2015) data linked to other routine health records. A high level of comorbidity was defined as scoring 1 or more on the Charlson comorbidity index, being in the top decile of inpatient stays, and/or having 5 or more visits to specific outpatient clinics, all within the 5 years preceding breast cancer diagnosis. Propensity score matching (PSM) and instrumental variable (IV) analysis, previously identified as feasible and valid in this setting, were used in conjunction with Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios for death from breast cancer and death from all causes. The analysis adjusts for age, clinical prognostic factors, and socioeconomic deprivation; the IV method may also adjust for unmeasured confounding factors. Cohorts of 9,653 and 7,965 were identified for women aged 70 years and over and those with high comorbidity, respectively. In the ≥70/high comorbidity cohorts, median follow-up was 5.17/6.53 years and there were 1,935/740 deaths from breast cancer. For women aged 70 years and over, the PSM-estimated HR was 0.73 (95% CI 0.64-0.95), while for women with high comorbidity it was 0.67 (95% CI 0.51-0.86). This translates to a mean predicted benefit in terms of overall survival at 10 years of approximately3% (percentage points) and 4%, respectively. A limitation of this analysis is that use of observational data means uncertainty remains both from sampling uncertainty and from potential bias from residual confounding. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study, as RWD, should be interpreted with caution and in the context of existing and emerging randomised data. The relative effectiveness of adjuvant chemotherapy in reducing mortality in patients with early stage breast cancer appears to be generalisable to the selected trial-underrepresented groups.</p

Substance use and dietary practices among students attending alternative high schools: results from a pilot study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Substance use and poor dietary practices are prevalent among adolescents. The purpose of this study was to examine frequency of substance use and associations between cigarette, alcohol and marijuana use and selected dietary practices, such as sugar-sweetened beverages, high-fat foods, fruits and vegetables, and frequency of fast food restaurant use among alternative high school students. Associations between multi-substance use and the same dietary practices were also examined.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A convenience sample of adolescents (n = 145; 61% minority, 52% male) attending six alternative high schools in the St Paul/Minneapolis metropolitan area completed baseline surveys. Students were participants in the Team COOL (Controlling Overweight and Obesity for Life) pilot study, a group randomized obesity prevention pilot trial. Mixed model multivariate analyses procedures were used to assess associations of interest.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Daily cigarette smoking was reported by 36% of students. Cigarette smoking was positively associated with consumption of regular soda (p = 0.019), high-fat foods (p = 0.037), and fast food restaurant use (p = 0.002). Alcohol (p = 0.005) and marijuana use (p = 0.035) were positively associated with high-fat food intake. With increasing numbers of substances, a positive trend was observed in high-fat food intake (p = 0.0003). There were no significant associations between substance use and fruit and vegetable intake.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Alternative high school students who use individual substances as well as multiple substances may be at high risk of unhealthful dietary practices. Comprehensive health interventions in alternative high schools have the potential of reducing health-compromising behaviors that are prevalent among this group of students. This study adds to the limited research examining substance use and diet among at-risk youth.</p> <p>Trial registration number</p> <p>ClinicalTrials.gov: <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01315743">NCT01315743</a></p